Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Vol III | Page 2

by
Dante in a certain passage of the 'Inferno':[1]--
And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese?
Not for a certainty the French by far.' Whereat the other leper, who had
heard me, Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca, Who knew the
art of moderate expenses, And Nicolò, who the luxurious use Of cloves
discovered earliest of all Within that garden where such seed takes root.
And taking out the band, among whom squandered Caccia d' Ascian his
vineyards and vast woods, And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'
Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years 1314
and 1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet on the
Months gives the name of Nicholò di Nisi to the leader of Folgore's
'blithe and lordly Fellowship.' The first of these facts leads us to the
conclusion that Folgore flourished in the first quarter of the fourteenth,
instead of in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. The second
prevents our identifying Nicholò di Nisi with the Niccolò de' Salimbeni,
who is thought to have been the founder of the Fellowship of the
Carnation. Furthermore, documents have recently been brought to light
which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306, a
certain Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this Folgore
with the poet; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar that its
occurrence in the records of so small a town as San Gemignano gives
some confirmation to the hypothesis of the poet's later date. Taking
these several considerations together, I think we must abandon the old

view that Folgore was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is,
moreover, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any rate, who still
believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, are forced to reject
as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte Catini and the
plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della Faggiuola. Yet these sonnets rest
on the same manuscript authority as the Months and Days, and are
distinguished by the same qualities.[2]
[1] Inferno, xxix. 121.--Longfellow.
[2] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in
his recent edition of Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene
da la Chitarra d' Arezzo. Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further
mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which
belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name.
Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign his period to
the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century,
there is no doubt but that he presents us with a very lively picture of
Italian manners, drawn from the point of view of the high bourgeoisie.
It is on this account that I have thought it worth while to translate five
of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form the fragment that remains to
us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better illustrate the temper of
Italian aristocracy when the civil wars of two centuries had forced the
nobles to enroll themselves among the burghers, and when what little
chivalry had taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous
over-bloom of luxury. The institutions of feudal knighthood had lost
their sterner meaning for our poet. He uses them for the suggestion of
delicate allegories fancifully painted. Their mysterious significance is
turned to gaiety, their piety to amorous delight, their grimness to
refined enjoyment. Still these changes are effected with perfect good
taste and in perfect good faith. Something of the perfume of true
chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming mercantile
and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by the petals of Folgore's
song-blossom. He has no conception that to readers of Mort Arthur, or
to Founders of the Garter, to Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard
Fitz-Simon, or Sir James Audley, his ideal knight would have seemed

but little better than a scented civet-cat. Such knights as his were all
that Italy possessed, and the poet-painter was justly proud of them,
since they served for finished pictures of the beautiful in life.
The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of
Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, they had passively accepted,
stubbornly resisted feudalism, remaining true to the conviction that
they themselves were Roman. In Roman memories they sought the
traditions which give consistency to national consciousness. And when
the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts, bishops,
and rural aristocracy; then Roman law was speedily substituted for the
'asinine code' of the barbarians, and Roman civility gave its tone to
social customs in the place of Teutonic chivalry. Yet just as the Italians
borrowed, modified,